Hurricane Maria death toll rises to 25

Hurricane Maria lashed the Turks and Caicos Islands after destroying homes and killing at least 25 people on Puerto Rico and other Caribbean islands. Picture: Guillermo Houwer/AP

San Juan - Hurricane Maria
lashed the Turks and Caicos Islands on Friday after destroying
homes, causing widespread flooding, crippling economies and
killing at least 25 people on Puerto Rico and other Caribbean
islands.

Maria was the second major hurricane to hit the Caribbean
this month and the strongest storm to hit the U.S. territory of
Puerto Rico in nearly 90 years. It completely knocked out the
island's power, and several rivers hit record flood levels.

Puerto Rico officials said on Friday that six people had
been confirmed killed by the storm: Three died in landslides in
Utuadno, in the island's mountainous center; two drowned in
flooding in Toa Baja, west of San Juan, and one died in Bayamon,
also near San Juan, after being stuck by a panel.

Earlier news media reports had the death toll on the island
as high as 15.

"At the moment these are fatalities we know of. We know of
other potential fatalities through unofficial channels that we
haven't been able to confirm," said Hector Pesquera, the
government's secretary of public safety."

Around San Juan, people worked to clear debris from the
streets on Friday and some began to reopen businesses, though
they wondered how long they could operate without power and with
limited inventory.

"There's no water, no power, nothing," said Rogelio Jimenez,
a 34-year-old restaurant worker, as he cleared fallen roofing
from the front of his pizzeria.

"We're opening today," he said, estimating that the
restaurant had enough supplies to last a week. "If there's
nothing after that, we'll close."

He
said about 700 people had been rescued from floodwaters and
communication was difficult with the southeastern part of the
island.

Puerto Rico was already facing the largest municipal debt
crisis in U.S. history.

A team of judges overseeing its
bankruptcy has advised involved parties to put legal proceedings
on hold indefinitely as the island recovers, said a source
familiar with the proceedings.

The storm was expected to cause $45 billion of damage across
the Caribbean, with at least $30 billion of that in Puerto Rico,
said Chuck Watson, a disaster modeler at Enki Research in
Savannah, Georgia. The figures included both physical damage and
losses in business from tourism.

Maria's tail end was still bringing drenching rain to Puerto
Rico, and some parts of the island could have accumulated totals
of up to 40 inches (about 101 cm) from the storm, the U.S. National
Hurricane Center (NHC) said.

Elsewhere in the Caribbean, 14 deaths were reported on the
island nation of Dominica, which has a population of about
71 000. Two people were killed in the French territory of
Guadeloupe and one in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Two people died
when the storm roared past the Dominican Republic on Thursday,
according to local media outlet El Jaya.

Communications outages throughout the region were making it
difficult for officials to get a clear picture of the damage.

By 11 a.m. ET (1500 GMT) on Friday, Maria was 55 miles (90
km) north of Grand Turk Island by 11 a.m. ET (1500 GMT) on
Friday, the NHC.

It was packing sustained winds of up to 125
miles per hour (205 km per hour), making it a Category 3
hurricane on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale.

The hurricane was headed northwest and expected to bring a
storm surge - ocean water pushed inland - of as much as 12 feet
(about 3.7 meters) above normal tide levels to parts of the
southeastern Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos Islands.

The storm was expected to be closer to the U.S. East Coast
and Bermuda by the middle of next week, the NHC said, adding
that it was too soon to determine what, if any, direct effect it
would have on the U.S. mainland.

In the Dominican Republic, Maria damaged nearly 3 000 homes
and led more than 9 300 people to head to shelters, local
emergency response agencies reported. Some 25 towns remained cut
off.

In Dominica, Maria damaged about 95 percent of roofs, the
U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said.
It struck as a rare Category 5 storm on Monday, obliterating the
island's vital agricultural sector.

Maria passed close by the U.S. Virgin Island of St. Croix,
home to about 55 000 people, early on Wednesday, knocking out
electricity and most mobile phone service.

Maria hit about two weeks after Hurricane Irma pounded two
other U.S. Virgin Islands: St. Thomas and St. John.

Irma, one of the most powerful Atlantic storms on record,
killed more than 80 people in the Caribbean and the United
States. It followed Harvey, which also killed more than 80
people when it hit Texas in late August and caused flooding in
Houston.

More than two months remain in the Atlantic hurricane
season, which runs from June 1 to November 30, although the busiest
period of storms is generally from mid-August to mid-October.